November 5, 1862 to April 14, 1865

After the Battle of Gettysburg, Union General George G. Meade and Robert E. Lee of the Confederates headed south to Virginia in a footrace to gain a position in the Blue Ridge Mountains. At Bristoe Station, Virginia, Federal and Confederate corps crossed paths, and battle ensued. Confederate General A.P. Hill underestimated the size of the Union army and attacked an overwhelmingly large Union...

In the midst of the Civil War, with its end undetermined, the War Department in Washington, D.C., requested the Lieutenant Colonel George Wagner to serve as the Captain for the Eighth Regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops. The U.S. Colored Troops had been established only a month before Wagner received this request. Many of the men within the Colored Troops had originally escaped into Washington where...

The Wilderness of Spotsylvania was, for the 160,000 men who fought there on May 5 and 6, 1864, a scene straight out of Hell. Lieutenant Colonel John Schnoonover was one of those men. He was the commander of the 11th New Jersey regiment, one of the units that composed McAllister’s 1st Brigade. During the morning of May 6, the Confederates were able to use the terrain of...

Directing large numbers of men in battle, while crawling through brush so thick that it could put out one’s eyes, is a nightmare beyond imagining. Such was a normal occurrence during the Battle of the Wilderness, a series of actions on May 5 and 6, 1864, that took place in the Spotsylvania Wilderness southwest of Chancellorsville.

On October 7, 1863 Captain Ely S. Parker of the United States Army wrote a letter to his brother Nic under the belief that their father was dead, bemoaning that, “We are orphans, scattered far and wide across this country. We must all do our best. We can feel that our lost parents have gone the course of nature.” Parker ended the letter by asking Nic to move in with their sister left alone by...

There was a brief article that appeared in Brownlow's Knoxville Whig on May 14, 1864 that discussed the tone of recent Richmond papers. It claimed that the tone had become increasingly nervous, which was perhaps indicative of the fate of Richmond and the South. Brownlow's Knoxville Whig claimed that Richmond papers were stating that 1864 would be the last year of the war. Although Richmond...

William Davis did not talk of gallantry or heroics in his Wilderness Campaign report. The Lieutenant Colonel was simply carrying out orders, and his regiment had been involved in the Union’s struggle since 1861. His 69th Pennsylvania was accustomed to the reality of war; they had fought in the most famous battles: Yorktown, Antietam and Gettysburg. However, the Wilderness was not a normal battle....

There were no heroics, tragedy, emotion or names in Joseph Barnes’ report of the Wilderness. Rather, his report of the onerous seven day battle was like a warehouse manager’s inventory report. Perhaps, the thirty one year old man did not want to relive one of the worst times of his life. At the age of 28, Joseph Barnes joined the Union army on May 18, 1861. A few months later he was promoted...

He became famous and celebrated through his death. War stories are always full of heroes that appear larger than life and worthy of reverence, and those stories revolving around the Battle of Gettysburg are no different. Sergeant Amos Humiston of Company C of the 154th New York was one such man. Though not a hero in the traditional sense, in his death he became somewhat of a legend. During...

In 1863 the state of Mississippi found itself entrenched in a massive war of attrition against its northern neighbors. Men from the South donned gray and marched off to battle, leaving those who did not join the ranks to fend for themselves on the home front. Rev. Samuel Agnew of Lee, Mississippi was one of these individuals. Agnew and others like himself found that they could not easily keep the...